Research with/in Communities: Fissures and Practices for an Anthropology Otherwise

This paper pushes for a reframing of Anthropology as a collaborative and situated practice grounded in relationships rather than extraction. Using the metaphor of the fissure (raja) as both concept and method, it explores how research with/in communities unsettles disciplinary boundaries and challenges the coloniality of knowledge production. The text proposes a constellation of orientations -decolonial vigilance, feminist reflexivity, embodied attention, sensory attunement, and ontological openness- that operate as ethical and political commitments rather than fixed techniques. Through examples that traverse various disciplines, it shows how different media can be reimagined as tools for collective inquiry and transformation. The paper concludes by calling for creativity, solidarity and hope in order to sustain plural, accountable, and co-created forms of knowledge.